Hamburg · Venue

Hamburgische Staatsoper

A 1,690-seat Hamburg opera house where a 1955 auditorium carries a company history reaching back to 1678.

Upcoming shows: 132
Address: 25 Große Theaterstraße, 20354 Hamburg
Phone: 040 356868
Next show: Sun, 15 Nov 2026

About Hamburgische Staatsoper

Hamburgische Staatsoper in Hamburg is a 1,690-seat opera house whose present auditorium opened in 1955, while the company traces its roots to the Operntheatrum founded in 1678. That pairing is the draw: a postwar auditorium serving an institution created by Hamburg citizens as Germany’s first privately run public opera house, outside the courtly model that governed much European opera at the time.

A civic opera rebuilt after war

In 1678, art-minded Hamburg citizens secured Senate approval for a long wooden Operntheatrum near Gänsemarkt. George Frideric Handel worked there as a violinist and harpsichordist, and his first opera, Almira, premiered there in 1705. Financial mismanagement and waning public interest closed the independent company in 1738; traveling comedy troupes used the building until its 1763 demolition. A 2,800-seat Stadt-Theater opened on the present site on May 3, 1827.

The decisive break came in 1943, when air raids destroyed the auditorium while leaving much of the stage house intact. Performances resumed in a temporary arrangement from 1946, and a reconstruction fund helped finance the new 1,690-seat auditorium, opened on October 15, 1955 with Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. The 1925 stage house remains part of the working theatre.

What the room offers now

Programming is curated in-house and repertory-led: opera and Hamburg Ballet fill the Großes Haus, with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester central to the musical forces. The season also makes space for contemporary music theatre, artist encounters, talks and youth-facing CLICK in projects. For a full-scale production, expect a seated main auditorium built around the retained historic stage house; for smaller events, opera stabile provides an experimental room for just under 150 spectators. This is a venue for staged classical work first, with access formats and contemporary projects widening the frame.

Sources

Die Hamburgische Staatsoper — Hamburgische Staatsoper
Staatsoper Hamburg – Spielplan und Aktuelles — hamburg.de
Hamburg State Opera — Wikipedia

Next 15 shows

Sun, 15 Nov 2026 · 15:00 Francesco Lanzillotta + Tigran Martirossian, Julie Fuchs, Marco Filippo Romano, Levy Sekgapane, Andrew Hamilton View in the CrowdMate app
Sun, 15 Nov 2026 · 18:00 Aebh Kelly + Nicholas Mogg, Kang Seo View in the CrowdMate app
Mon, 16 Nov 2026 · 20:00 Aebh Kelly + Nicholas Mogg, Kang Seo View in the CrowdMate app
Tue, 17 Nov 2026 · 19:00 Aebh Kelly + Nicholas Mogg, Kang Seo View in the CrowdMate app
Tue, 17 Nov 2026 · 19:30 Vitali Alekseenok + Tiago Alexandre Fonseca, Pauliina Räsänen, Slava Volkov, Patricia Nolz, Katarina Bradić View in the CrowdMate app
Thu, 19 Nov 2026 · 19:00 Francesco Lanzillotta + Tigran Martirossian, Julie Fuchs, Marco Filippo Romano, Levy Sekgapane, Andrew Hamilton View in the CrowdMate app
Thu, 19 Nov 2026 · 20:00 Aebh Kelly + Nicholas Mogg, Kang Seo View in the CrowdMate app
Fri, 20 Nov 2026 · 19:30 Vitali Alekseenok + Tiago Alexandre Fonseca, Pauliina Räsänen, Slava Volkov, Patricia Nolz, Katarina Bradić View in the CrowdMate app
Sat, 21 Nov 2026 · 19:00 Aebh Kelly + Nicholas Mogg, Kang Seo View in the CrowdMate app
Sun, 22 Nov 2026 · 15:00 Aebh Kelly + Nicholas Mogg, Kang Seo View in the CrowdMate app
Sun, 22 Nov 2026 · 18:00 Markus Poschner + Nicole Heesters, Elbenita Kajtazi, Franziska Machens, Tim Porath, Oleksiy Palchykov View in the CrowdMate app
Wed, 25 Nov 2026 · 19:30 Vitali Alekseenok + Tiago Alexandre Fonseca, Pauliina Räsänen, Slava Volkov, Patricia Nolz, Katarina Bradić View in the CrowdMate app
Thu, 26 Nov 2026 · 19:00 Francesco Lanzillotta + Tigran Martirossian, Julie Fuchs, Marco Filippo Romano, Levy Sekgapane, Andrew Hamilton View in the CrowdMate app
Fri, 27 Nov 2026 · 19:30 Volker Krafft + Tiago Alexandre Fonseca, Pauliina Räsänen, Slava Volkov, Patricia Nolz, Katarina Bradić View in the CrowdMate app
Sat, 28 Nov 2026 · 11:00 Kids only #2: Durch das Wurmloch hindurch View in the CrowdMate app

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